All posts tagged ‘Xbox’

I’m often asked about the best games for very young gamers. The issue, I’ve found, is not that there aren’t any great games for pre-school children but that much video-game coverage moves onto the next big thing and leaves these infant gamer gems behind.

One of my recent go-to games for youngsters has been Kinect Sesame Street TV. This combination of a TV show and a game is ideal for very young gamers who can participate and interact or decide just to watch. I’ve been working to get some inside access to the team at Soho Studios and last month spent a very happy morning with them talking about (and playing) Kinect Sesame Street TV.

It was eye-opening to work through the various features on offer in Kinect Sesame Street TV Season 2. Something I hadn’t realized was that the Top Clips element provides an archive of 40 years of the TV show with some 3,500 clips. More than that, they are sorted and group by type, character and theme. I’ve since spent more than a few happy after-school evenings with the kids browsing through their favorite characters — so much Elmo!

Talking to the team, I learned how they had wanted to improve upon Season 1 and add new features. For instance the Street Moves segment is now included to add more opportunity to play and interact with real people, something design lead Rob Stevens described as “a core part of Sesame and something we wanted to be sure we included that in Season 2.”

This is true again with the Grover Knover segment that takes a Evel Knievel themed throwing game to let kids do more throwing in Season 2. Stevens described seeing children reacted to the first season and obviously “just wanting to throw and throw. So here you get rewarded for that.”

It was also interesting to head from the people behind the different elements of the game. As we talked there was a real sense of fun and excitement. This was a team clearly enjoying their work, and appreciating what it meant to be able to work with such a cultural heavy-weight as Sesame Street.

Aimee Freeding, responsible for User Research, talked about refining the Kinect technology for their younger audience and the amount of in-the-home user testing this required. “Sesame Street primarily goes after the ages of 3-5yrs. We aimed at the 3-4yrs range, but what we discovered in the homes of families is that kids of all ages enjoyed it and it became a family experience.”

Of course, Sesame Street the TV show is programmed on multiple levels to involve both parents and children. Freeding talked about how the game also addressed this. “They call it scaffolding, when a parent sits with the child and actually helps them learn something. So we tried to create experiences that encouraged parents to get involved with their children. The hidden object experience is even more popular with adults than kids.”

Certainly, the segment of the show that hides objects to be spotted by players shouting “Picture” and pointing becomes more than a little addictive. There’s a race to see who can spot it first, and in fact this interaction becomes quite ingrained. My youngest was recently frustrated when a “non-Kinect” TV show wouldn’t register him shouting out when he spotted a fruit on the screen.

Soho Studios User Testing Kinect Sesame Street TV

I asked Rob Stevens, Design Lead on Kinect Sesame Street TV, whether the technology or the game came first. He suggested it was simply a good fit for both. “I think it just made a lot of sense. Sesame as a show asks a lot of questions and implies a lot of interactivity of the kids. Kinect just allows that to be realized. You don’t have to press any buttons or calibrate them, you just tell them to speak, dance or jump and it works.”

Stevens went on to expand upon how Season 2 capitalizes on the benefits of the family playing together. “We’ve made sure that every single part of season 2 is multi-player in some way. There’s a lot more of the child on the screen so they are brought into the world. And segments like Elmo’s World we’ve got more multi-player interaction.”

Asked whether Kinect worked well with very small children Stevens and Freeding were robust in the technology’s ability to detect smaller bodies — something that other Kinect games can struggle with in my experience. Freeding described the journey they have had with the hands-free controller technology. “We spent some considerable time bringing children in. When Kinect first came out it was really adapted to you or me [adults] so we had to spend some time to make sure that smaller people were recognized.”

In terms of the look and feel of the game, Jez Fry was responsible for getting this right. As Associate Art Director he talked about understanding the Sesame Street style. “There was a lot of studying involved, to make sure our line quality was basically similar to theirs. For example we couldn’t do perfect straight lines or beautiful curves. We had to make sure that curves were slightly off and lines were bent and wiggle. And yet keep them appealing and fun. We couldn’t have ugly scribbles.”

I asked him if it was really worth all that effort. “It definitely is because kids respond to visual stuff, they are looking for appeal on the screen, to relate to what they see on the screen. If what they see doesn’t look like Elmo or if it doesn’t look like a nice friendly ‘fish’ they are not going to react to it. I think it’s of paramount importance to make appealing art work.”

Carla Prada, Senior Animator, then introduced how the game moved. “Cooper is actually motion captured by a puppeteer from Sesame Street who provides the associated characteristics of movement you expect from a puppet. In Season 2 we’ve got him interacting in a lot more props.”

Kinect Sesame Street TV

Going back to programming at two levels it was interesting to hear Tim Ackroyd, Senior Video Editor, talk about the edit on the Grover Knover segment. “The edit of that was based on things like Evel Knievel. We spent a lot of time to include camera blur to give it a real action sports feel.”

I came away from my time at Soho Studios with not only a better understanding about what goes in to games like Kinect Sesame Street TV, but also the people behind it.

With many at the studio having young children it was obvious that the enjoyment stretched beyond a nine-to-five job. For instance, hearing Stevens talking about how his young son enjoyed the Letter Tree segment made it obvious that he was more than happy to take his work home with him.

There’s no news currently of a Season 3, but I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for this or other Kinect TV titles (like Kinect Nat Geo TV).

If you like the sound of all this, there’s currently a free trial. Until 11th March you can download the Kinect Sesame Street TV app on Xbox LIVE and access three experiences (The Count, Cookie Monster and Elmo) for free. Just log onto Xbox LIVE, visit the Apps Marketplace, scroll to Video Apps and click on Kinect Sesame Street TV.

As a gamer, I play a lot of video games. In playing a lot of video games, I also die a lot. I mean all the freaking time. I think I “fell down” in Call of Duty: World at War at least 20 times last night before finally realizing that I should probably pick my shots better. In most games, that’s what you do – you fall down and die.

In the spirit of Halloween, I’ve compiled a short list of some of the most creative and memorable deaths that I’ve experienced playing video games. I’m talking about your character dying, not the enemy. I’ve left out the gory and the insane, but I’m pretty sure you’ll mention them in the comments. Instead I’d like to think this list will make us all realize that we are all in fact mortal, and we don’t have a restart button. Though some of us may, and I’ll see all of you at “The Quickening.”

Where'd he get the carrot? (image: WB Interactive)

10: Sub-Zero’s Winter Wonderland.
I know this is the first one that popped in your little gamer heads. Mortal Kombat featured a multitude of great finishing moves that could only be pulled off with extreme finger dexterity, the most popular being Sub-Zero’s ripping out of the spine. However, my favorite was Sub-Zero simply making a snowman. You had lost, and instead of brutally killing you, your opponent makes a snowman – adding insult to injury.

9: Pac-Man is an Antacid.
One of the most classic video game deaths comes from the old standard, Pac-Man. When touched by a ghost, our pizza pie shaped hero rolls onto his back, dislocates his giant jaw and dissolves into nothingness. This was quite creative considering that most video game deaths at this time just appeared as if the character was frozen, then it would restart. Don’t forget about the iconic sound he makes while dying. If you had another quarter, you could easily summon him back from the black hole of video game death.

8: Getting Your Lights Punched Out.
The best boxing game out there, Fight Night (rounds 3 or 4) provides one of the most realistic beat downs ever in a video game. When you get knocked down, the camera pans out a little and the screen emulates what your vision would be like if you just got punched in the face one too many times. Sometimes you just stagger and fall, other times you go down hard. It all depends on the type of punch you just took to put you down. It hurts my jaw just to think about it.Continue Reading Creative Video Game Deaths

FGTV interviews Frank O’Connor to discover what Halo 4 has to offer to families and how the franchise is starting to capitalize on these assets.

Halo 4 is a uniquely interactive rendering of a story that has been around as long as the hills. It follows an individual, Master Chief, whose presence not only brings the hope of victory but also acts as a symbol of salvation from the grisly realities of war. His abilities, destiny, and even his doom are the crucible on which countless thousands of Spartan soldiers happily throw their lives.

Halo 4

That may sound a bit grandiose, I know. Many will prefer to trace Halo’s success to its ingenious combat — those moments of encounter with an enemy that work on the basis of logic, strategy and reflexes without needing to lean on blood, shock and gore like most other first-person shooters. The screw is then turned on this game play sandwich as Halo creates a thousand different reasons, locations and stories in which to experience those moments over and over again.

The elephant in the room here is that the majority of people don’t really know what Halo is. Most parents I know take a cursory glance at the game and see it in the same light as other first-person shooter games: something they know has a draw for their children, and even tolerate being played in their shared family spaces, but not something they would want to engage with themselves.

It’s this issue that Halo 4 ($59.99) aims to address with its episodic Spartan-Ops campaign. Here, players get a series of challenges delivered in ongoing seasons complete with rich cinematic sequences to bring them back for more. In his introduction to our game play session, O’Connor underlined the aging of the Halo faithful: both the players and the developers. Tasked with assembling a new team under the 343 Industries banner to create Halo 4, he talks about the new studio as “a bunch of Halo fans standing on the shoulders of Bungie’s good work.” As well, this is an older and more diverse cohort that unsurprisingly encompasses every facet of life, parenthood included, as Connor remarks jovially “we realized we’ve had numerous babies since working on Halo 4.”

Casey Anderson, host of National Geographic Channel’s Expedition Wild and America the Wild, is walking around Yellowstone National Park. He’s hiking across the rocks, talking to the camera about the local bears. Then, the action stops and he turns to the camera and asks for your help. Some animal tracks pop up on the screen, and you or your child indicate which ones to follow using the Xbox 360′s camera-based motion controller.

This isn’t a television show, this is an interactive videogame — Kinect Nat Geo TV.

While this fact is not too surprising considering that you were aware of the disc you were putting in the Xbox, Kinect Nat Geo TV blends the television episodic delivery of a nature program with some neat interactions that let your children get involved in the program and stimulate learning. An educational game wrapped in an educational program, Kinect Nat Geo TV does a good job of pacing learning with fun.

The game is hosted by Anderson, a man who is just about as close to nature as anyone could be. His best friend (and best creature at his wedding) is a bear named Brutus, who accompanies Casey throughout a good portion of the game. Casey has an affable and likeable tone that is never preachy when it comes to subjects like nature preservation. His interactions with your kids are aimed at the 7- to 12-year-old range, asking questions and touring nature with continuous attention to the viewer. Continue Reading “Live the Animal Life With Kinect Nat Geo TV” »

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron has been busy with the launch of three downloadable content (DLC) packs. Currently available are the Dinobot Destructor and Multiplayer Havoc Packs. I’m definitely looking forward to joining the battle as Grimlock. You can find out more about the DLC on the Transformers Game Facebook page.

To celebrate the release of the Dinobot Destructor pack, this weekend is a double XP weekend on Transformers FOC Multi-player. Don your favorite Dinobot skin and level up twice as fast through mid-day Monday.

We here at GeekDad are celebrating by giving away copies of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. We have five copies each for Xbox and Playstation to give away. To enter fill out the form below. I’ll be picking the lucky winners at random on Monday at 1PM Eastern.

Learning a new videogame can be frustrating. But for kids with disabilities, the experience can be especially hard. If you can’t play what the other kids are playing, it’s like being picked last for the kickball team.

Take Giddeon, whom the AbleGamers Foundation met at one of their “Accessibility Arcades” in Atlantic City, New Jersey. According to the AbleGamers Foundation website, Giddeon didn’t want to play any games. A rare disease had stunted the growth of his arms. Only a few fingers had formed. Holding a game controller was tough.

Already, too many kids with disabilities feel like they’re being left out of all the fun. For Giddeon, the experience of not being able to play the game could have been a minor encounter with low self-esteem, or a major lesson in humiliation.

But after encouragement from the AbleGamers staff, Giddeon used an “accessible controller” called the Adroit with the racing game Forza 3. “Within seconds he was racing past the competition and smiling brightly at his newfound driving skills,” the AbleGamers Foundation website said. “By the end of that day he was coming in first place in every race.”

Thanks to adaptive technology, Giddeon had gone from being unable to play a videogame to becoming a racing champion — and a gamer.

Now the AbleGamers Foundation, long dedicated to bring greater accessibility in the digital entertainment space for people of all ages, has launched the AbleGamers 2012 Children’s Grant Program, a one-time grant that provides gaming equipment for children 15 years or younger.

“We are thrilled to be enabling children with disabilities by providing assistive technology through this grant,” said Mark Barlet, president and founder of the AbleGamers Foundation. “Our supporters are wonderful. Without the amazing and continued support of generous donors, this wouldn’t be possible.”

Applications are now being accepted for kids to receive one piece of assistive technology, courtesy of the AbleGamers Foundation, so that they might can “gain a greater quality of life, and develop a rich social life that gaming can bring,” AbleGamers said.

A young woman uses the an accessible controller to play a videogame.Photo courtesy AbleGamers Foundation

The grants might fund hardware and accessible controllers from major assistive technology makers, as well as software. Accessibility technology enables play on most major game systems, including Nintendo’s Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation 3, and personal computers.

Kids deserve to feel normal, powerful and able to participate in the culture, which for so many revolves around gaming. Kids with disabilities, AbleGamers said, ”just want to have fun despite [the] many serious challenges disability can bring.”

I’ve just spent the last two days playing through Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and it is, without a doubt, my favorite game this year. High Moon Studios put a lot of their heart and soul into this game and it really shows. I’ve known since BotCon that this game was going to be epic, but I didn’t realize how much so until this weekend.

Continuing where War for Cybertron (WfC) left off, the game starts out with the Autobots scrambling to make an exodus from their dying planet. Like the first game the story flows effortlessly between chapters with smooth story transitions and cut scenes. Unlike the WfC, the different perspectives are woven together in a single timeline with the player moving smoothly from one to another.

A few large transformers make appearances through the game. First up is Metroplex, a city sized defense robot analogous to Trypticon from WfC. You don’t get to control him directly, but while playing as Optimus you can target his attacks at various Decepticon vehicles and weapons.

My favorite character is Grimlock, the giant fire-breathing robot T-Rex. Grimlock has a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde problem in that he can only transform when mad (though on command) and, if you aren’t careful, will switch back to robot form at the least opportune moment.

Later in the game you also get to take control of Bruticus, a combination of five legendary Combaticons, but I can’t say too much about that without some major spoilers. Let’s just say he kicks some proverbial robot butt.

Multiplayer has not changed significantly since the Demo, but there are a couple more game types and maps. They have tweaked the game, presumably to level the playing field for different weapons and class types. Details are posted on their blog here: High Moon Studios: Demo Change Log.

Wired: Great story and game play. It is obvious that the developers are true fans of Transformers and poured their soul into making this game true to the universe.

Tired: I only had one complaint about the story, early on, but can’t really reveal it without major spoilers. Leave a note in the comments if you would like to discuss it.

The game uses body motions to take you through the “seven minutes of terror” landing sequence for the MSL to release the Mars Curiosity rover (if you haven’t seen the video, go watch it now!). In a likely hat-tip to San Diego Comic-Con, NASA News/Media intern Danielle Roosa even demonstrated the game live from the press conference audience!

Will this game spark new conversation about science or Mars? Go play the game and leave a note letting us know how you (and your kids) like it!

One of the many pleasures of stalking the show floor at E3 was bumping into some of the smaller developers. Two such encounters were with Dave Lang of Iron Galaxy whose new game Wreckateer was featured in the Xbox keynote and is coming later this year, and Tequila Works CEO Raúl Rubio Munárriz whose game Deadlight is also due out soon.

Both these titles are slated to be part of the Xbox 360′s Summer of Arcade program, and I think families should look forward to both of them — although for very different reasons.

Firstly, Wreckateer (as you can see in the interview below) is a combination of Angry Birds, Burnout and Boom Blox. That’s quite a trio of games to reference for any developer. Iron Galaxy has taken those three seeds and added Kinect controls. The result is a super-simple and super-destructive tower attack game.

I’m a gamer. Not a serious, spend all night (at least not often) playing games type, but still a gamer. I’ve played a lot of Call of Duty on Xbox Live in the last couple years, and while I rank well enough, it is obvious that the younger kids definitely have an advantage when it comes to reflexes. I have managed to find a few ways that technology can shave a little off that advantage.

The most important advantage is a good network connection, though this is often the one thing we have the least control over. Routers that allow you to set Quality of Service (QoS) on gaming packets can help, as can reducing bandwidth usage. Stop the torrents and kick the kids off Netflix.

A nice TV. Bigger is better, up to a point. If you have to turn your head to see the edges of the screen you may have gone too far. I use a 42″ LCD with an HDMI cable to the Xbox. Some people say that HDMI adds some latency, but I didn’t notice a difference when I switched from composite. Sit up close to the TV. My aging eyes are still pretty good at picking up movement, but not from across the room.

However, the one thing that had the greatest impact on my K/D ratio was a pair of surround sound headphones. Just upgrading from a cheap pair of stereo headphones was enough to bump my Free-for-All K/D from about 1 to 1.4. It takes a little while to get used to the sound, but once you do, you’ll be able to hear your opponents around the corner, and gauge exactly when start shooting. Continue Reading “Improve Your Game With Technology And The Turtle Beach XP400″ »